another deliberately incoherent spox with interesting hints

Former Deputy Asst Sec State Col (Retd) S Ganyard said Donald Trump’s comments about his classified intelligence briefing this week troubled some in the intelligence community. In response to Trump’s claim that his briefers’ body language revealed their frustration with Obama’s leadership, he said:

Our friends in the intelligence community were quite upset to hear that sort of talk. I think if there was any discomfort, it was not signaling any personal preference or policy, it was more because they understood that what they were saying might be used against them in a way that was untrue.

Ganyard, who attended classified briefings while working at the State Dept, joined this week’s episode of the “Powerhouse Politics” podcast with ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl and ABC News political director Rick Klein to discuss Trump’s inflammatory comments about his latest intelligence briefing and possible ties to the Russian government. Ganyard, a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps and current ABC News contributor, said that a reportedly heated exchange between Gen (Retd) M Flynn, who was at the briefing as a Trump adviser, and the intelligence officers, in which Flynn was allegedly verbally restrained by NJ Gov Chris Christie, was probably more about the level of the analysis rather than the analysis itself. Ganyard said:

Everybody has some sort of intelligence capability or an arm, and so DIA (the Defense Intelligence Agency, which Flynn once directed) has been sort of the JV to the CIA’s varsity. So I’m sure he was expecting something much more substantial than what was given. That’s probably what he was objecting to, not the analysis itself. The briefing was most likely a basic around-the-world overview of information, with added layers of intelligence behind it. So if they’re doing that sort of thing, then it’s probably not going to be to the level of intelligence, the very, very secretive stuff, that Gen Flynn was looking for.

As for Trump’s recent praise of Putin and potential ties to Russia, Ganyard said:

I used to think ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ was just a movie. Now I’m beginning to wonder.

He later slammed Trump for appearing on the Russian television program “RT” (sic – RB) which he called “a propaganda arm of the Russian government,” adding:

For him to go on and treat it like it was ABC or NBC or CBS is just deceptive.

Ganyard also didn’t hold back when calling out Hillary Clinton and her aides for their handling of sensitive information while she served as Sec State. He said:

She may have had the ability to say: “I don’t know what the (C) is.” … The people that don’t have any kind of excuse are her aides. The fact that all of her aides went free is a thing that I have a hard time justifying, because somebody knew. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she has an excuse. But somebody was feeding her highly, highly classified information, knowing full well what they were doing. In the military, it can generally be a career ender to divulge classified information or mishandle it. … But more than anything, I’m distressed over the military being pulled into a very politicized, bitterly politicized, campaign. (It must) rise above partisan politics. The military has to step back and say, these are politicians, there are other people, but you’re in the military, you’re there to support and defend the Constitution. You’re going to be held to a higher standard, not only in your conduct but in the eyes of the Pindo sheeple.